I am What I Eat

I am the very things I eat.  I am style, I am music, I am Bible, faith, and belief.  I am superhero prequels and sequels and repeats, I am normally abnormal families, I am bling, convenience, the latest technology, happy hours and buy-one-get-one-frees, I am super-sized for the regular price, pride, fear, wisdom, and love.  I'm pretty well rounded, and I look pretty good--maybe a little cluttered.  But I ate it, and I am!

It's hard to imagine a world that wasn't evaluated by what impact it has on us or by how much we liked it.  That's who we are and how we work, isn't it?

I go to a movie because of how satisfied I'll be when I'm done.  I eat food based on the same practice.  I choose who to follow on Facebook and Blogger based on how much I like each and how much my choices may say to others about me.  If something doesn't appear to be good to me, pleasing, or otherwise beneficial, I won't eat it, buy it, watch it, listen to it, read it, share it, or recommend it.  My clothes are purchased based on how good they'll make me look as well as promote my style and my status rating.  I take advantage of many things, not because I want or need them, but simply because the very act of taking, buying, eating, consuming them makes me feel good-regardless of what they are.  I seek to experience things simply for the sake of getting to experience them.

It's nothing new to us, but perhaps it's an interesting perspective on our consumer-driven society that causes us to wonder:  what exactly would our world look like if not driven by consuming based on the resulting satisfaction?  How would we be able to make choices?  How would we know if we found a good church?  How would we know if a show was worth tuning into next week or a restaurant worth our returning to?

Could we function?  What other form of measurement would we use?  To be clear, while I do make daily efforts to live a life of holiness in regards to Jesus and the scriptures, I am no saint, and I ain't no purist.  But I think it's worth considering the alternatives:

What if we evaluated the use of things based on their capacity to enrich others' lives?  What if we watched, read, or listened to things depending on how capable they were of bringing honor to God?  What if I simply ate meals because I needed nourishment?  What if I sought entertainment in the hopes of meeting a need for spending time with those I loved?  What if I didn't simply shop for things because shopping feels good, but instead only made purchases on a need-based approach?

Maybe my life would be boring.  Maybe my faith wouldn't have so much to do with me, and more with God.  Maybe I wouldn't develop as many special interests.  Maybe I would be more concerned with quality than quantity.  Maybe I would be able to see who God was without worrying about why he hasn't met all my needs yet.  Maybe I'd feel more complete.

Just a thought.

ALWAYS more to come!

Jason <><

Pop [ped-Bubble] Culture

In the event that we have fallen into the trap of being too harsh or critical of our current culture and society, my thoughts today are shaped around the effort to share a couple things that are actually pretty great about what's going on in the pop-culture world:

1. Popped Bubbles - Significantly more so now than many times in our history, it is cool to mix, cool to welcome.   Many of the lines that once divided and segregated our society have been disrupted.
   
2. Hot Fingertips - Don't have access to an encyclopedia, an ivy league education, or the daily newspaper?  Don't sweat it:  from recipes, to (fairly) accurate facts, to diagnoses and remedies, to reports, journals, and newspaper articles, it's now online.  It's all at your fingertips now.
   
3. I-Can Courage - In spite of a rocky economy and major shifts in production and employment, today's younger generations have more courage, confidence, and assurance that things will work out favorably than any other generation.  Can't beat that if you're looking into the future!
   
4. Rolls Unrolled - Whether or not it's even cool or trendy, we're saving rolls and rolls of paper per year because of bill-pay, e-mail, and other conveniences.
   
5. Famous Walls - The walls that stand between hopefuls and future stardom have crumbled.  More now than ever, through the use of personalized technology, anyone can get in front of someone who may have connections to fame.  And even when that doesn't work, all a person really needs to do is strike a nerve with the world, and their video, blog, or other production just may go viral by the end of the day!
   
6. Miracle Street - Our health and healing technologies are making leaps and bounds, not to mention all the ways technology aids the basic operations of the healthcare world.  My entire last visit with the doctor was conducted with an i-Pad and a stethoscope.
   
7. Word on the Street - The number of people reading the Bible has exploded recently, nearly tripling, because of how accessible it now is digitally.  

This isn't an exhaustive list, by any means, but it's helpful to see the bright side of life as it is as well. Otherwise, it's far too easy to develop a sense of unrealistic sentimentality that wishes the world were restored to "the way things used to be" or that wishes the world would simply hurry up and straighten out all its problems and be perfect.  

So here's to today!

More to come!

Jason <><

Uh-Oh! A "Catchy" Culture!

Yesterday's sermon was recorded and is available here!  It was striking to see the affect of yesterday's message on all of us.  I had many messages from people saying "Oh no!!  I feel so awkward getting on Facebook and Pinterest now.  I feel so convicted by today's teaching!"

Not only that, but I too, on my drive home yesterday, had that moment of panic:  "Oh no!  I'm convicted too. Life on Facebook might look quite different for me now as well!"  But it's amazing how quickly the world of popular culture regains our allegiance no matter how hard we try to make changes.  Ultimately, as I finally got back on Facebook last night, it was pretty challenging to adopt new attitudes and approaches mentioned in yesterday's message:

Who's the Greatest - Part 1 (08-11-13)
Who's the Greatest - Part 2 (08-11-13)

What I know about culture is it is a fascinating and complex thing.  It's as difficult as faith to understand and navigate.  It's as influential as salvation is on the course and actions of our lives.  It's as present as God and God's Spirit in our world and daily lives.  So what do we do with it??  How do we live beyond it?

I've been to Africa twice for extended periods of time.  Each time I returned, I felt as though I was coming back to a former world with a brand new bag of fond practices and attitudes I picked up in Africa that I hoped to keep alive in my life back in the states.

But each time I returned, no matter how hard I tried to maintain aspects of my African life in the U.S., those practices slowly drained away--especially the ones most counter-cultural or in opposition to the rest of the world's ways.  Culture is strong, and doesn't really appreciate rebellion.

So here we are as faithful people, working to live lives that are different from the ways of the world, working to be more like Jesus than the pharisees and scribes.  Here we are trying to make the world a better place through faith and help set the world free through Christ.

But it's difficult, because we don't realize how strong our competitor is.  Culture seems gentle and anonymous, but the truth is it is more powerful than we imagine.

Paul invites us to "be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong" (1 Cor 16:13).  In the midst of such strong influences in our lives, let our prayer be today that the Spirit will give us the strength we need to stand strong!  Let us find ways to cling to God and celebrate the ways our lives are being changed, elevated, and made to reflect God's light and love.

More to come!


Jason <><

Pop Thoughts: "A Meaty Subject"

There's just no way to get all the subjects of pop culture into a short sermon series.  So I've decided to take some time in my blog to look at trends, influences, and events that won't get covered on Sundays.

It seems harmless enough, and even kind of cool.  We've finally reached some of the futuristic visions that Star Trek, Epcot Center, and thousands of other Sci-Fi influences of the 80s and 90s dreamt up.  Today's big news:  scientists have finally succeeded in their efforts to create completely synthesized meat.  The burger, cultured out of lab grown muscle cells, requires no animal cultivation or slaughtering, offers a much leaner, cleaner serving, and is what many say may be the answer to both starvation in underdeveloped countries and future instances of overpopulation.  Goodbye dear cow.

Beef without a cow?  Cool.  Cool because it's amazing to see how far the human race has come; cool to see how smart we are.  Synthesized beef isn't simply an isolated achievement.  Every development of this scale implies further advancements in other fields, for other intentions:  cancer research, HIV/AIDS research, etc.  Who knows how this new technology will affect the rest.  Amen for that and the ways we have channeled our resources, time, and intelligence into outcomes that help others in the world.

But where do we draw the line?  It was once a pretty big deal when we found a way to put meat in a can and sell ultra processed meat parts at ultra low prices, only to find out now that these new and affordable conveniences may be some of the very things that are killing us.  Often in our world it seems like we're so busy creating alternatives to problems that we forget to look at what is causing them.  We may be far better off going upstream a little, rather than simply addressing the results.  Ultimately what I'm talking about goes far beyond synthesized meat, canned food, plastic in everything, and other late food trends to even bigger things.

So many times we simply want to fix our world and create easy bandages, rather than get at the heart of our issues.  In my opinion, the solution to overpopulation is not simply to find ways to make food artificially, just as the resolution to marital strife should never be infidelity, just as large amounts of money poured into an economy is not likely to be a lasting resolution to poor spending, saving, managing, and investing practices.

Furthermore, God has never promised or offered a world without pain, struggle, hard work, or sacrifice until we are fully redeemed through Christ in the end.  Paul tells us so many times that we should see the true blessing that is offered to us in our struggles.  And yet, we consistently work to find ways to relieve ourselves of such things:  hard work, pain, struggle, challenge, rejection, sacrifice, etc.  Instead, we may be better off embracing our challenges and pains and listening to them, praying about them, and finding ways to grow closer to God and be witnesses to his glory.

In closing, maybe easier really isn't the answer to all our problems.


More to come!

Jason <><